


for the debt i owe, gotta sell my soul

by ursulamerkle



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Forced Prostitution, Hunger Games, M/M, No Proofreading We Die Like Men, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Prostitute Peter Parker, Quentin Beck Being a Jerk, Sex Work, Tony Stark Has A Heart, but also soft quentin beck, quentin beck is a good guy!!! kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:01:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22315972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ursulamerkle/pseuds/ursulamerkle
Summary: Peter Parker is the victor of the 76th Hunger Games. The prize for his victory was a promise of safety; a promise that, for his sacrifice, he and his loved ones would never suffer, would never want for anything in their lonely little house in the Victor’s Village.Apparently, there is no sacrifice great enough for the Capitol.or, who writes hunger games AUs anymore it is 2020
Relationships: Quentin Beck/Peter Parker
Comments: 85
Kudos: 172





	1. what do you want from me

**Author's Note:**

> aaaaand here we restart the cycle of starting fics that i think i'll commit to finishing and then never do. i'm working on it i swear

The one thing Peter actually looks forward to during his visits to the Capitol is the train ride there.

The trip from District 3 to the Capitol takes about twelve hours. He gets an entire train car to himself, beautifully decorated and painted slate gray to match the monochrome furnishings inside. He gets a king-sized bed with perfectly fluffed throw pillows, a fully stocked mini-bar full of a variety of expensive libations, and a flat-screen television; all of it to distract him from the Peacekeeper stationed outside of the only exit to ensure Peter can’t leave. Trapping him inside his gilded cage.

Peter never sleeps in the bed, never drinks from the bar, never turns on the TV. He doesn’t want the Capitol thinking he’s falling for their fabricated generosity. 

What Peter loves is sitting on the couch by the windows and watching the world blur by, an endless green-gray-blue smear of trees and earth and sky. He especially loves it when it rains, the way it patters softly against the roof and skitters across the windowpane as the train zips silently down the tracks, hurtling silently and inevitably towards another beautiful prison.

Once he arrives, he’s immediately escorted to the penthouse suite of a luxury hotel until his first appointment, at which time the Peacekeeper, his invisible and omnipresent travel companion, will usher him back downstairs and into a hover car to deliver him like a pretty present to whichever rich Capitolite has paid to use him for the evening. The Peacekeeper will wait in the car until Peter is done, and when he slips back into the car and he’s crying or can’t sit right, they won’t say anything. They know what Peter is there for.

But this trip is different.

Peter can sense it in the way his stylists dress him, specifically when they keep getting more and more frustrated that nothing they’ve brought looks good enough on him. They’re usually a touch neurotic, but they can also usually agree on an outfit for him without hysterics. Today they’re tense and agitated, quick to snap at one another _and_ at Peter. They refuse to say anything when Peter presses them, but he can tell the stakes are higher for tonight’s visit. It must be someone important. Someone high up on the Capitol’s governmental ladder.

After another half hour of deliberation, they settle on an ensemble; black leather pants and matching boots paired with a silken red shirt with silver armor-like plating draped across the shoulders and on the collar, for that Capitol flair. They’ve even put makeup on him. A few swipes of mascara, some blush, and a sheer red balm that smells like cherries and makes his lips tingle. His stylists had argued about that too, but the victorious line of reasoning was that it makes him look youthful and innocent.

Like he hasn’t killed with his bare hands.

When he says goodbye to his Aunt May, she smiles sadly and tells him he looks _so handsome!_ , and when she touches Peter’s face, one of his stylists actually swats her hand away.

Something about that simple gesture makes Peter’s stomach churn. His stylists _love_ May. Who the hell is this important?

And what the hell do they want with Peter?

May hugs him tight. Tighter than she normally does when he leaves for one of his visits. Peter wonders if he’s imagining that, though. When he kisses her cheek, there’s a subtle red smudge against her skin. He smiles and tells her not to wash it off, but when she doesn’t laugh in response, he wonders if it will still be there when he comes home.

Peter leaves and the sleepy smell of her lavender perfume clings to his clothes.

Peter’s second favorite thing about the train is that he can never tell when it starts; one moment the world outside is still and unmoving, the next a chaotic wash of running color, like a cascade of spilled watercolors. They’re engineered so brilliantly. Peter wants to take one apart and study all its mechanics till he can rebuild it blindfolded.

Peter falls asleep on the couch halfway into the trip, watching the sun set over the treetops.

When he wakes, it’s night, but the bright lights of the Capitol are shining in the distance. Peter can see his reflection faintly in the windowpane, and for a moment he doesn’t even recognize himself. He looks like a doll, with rosy cheeks and curls mussed from sleep and lashes fanned out, long and dark against his pale skin. They seem to flutter provocatively no matter how simply he blinks them.

When the train slows and Peter is finally allowed out of his confine, there’s already a hover car waiting for him. Peter looks over at the Peacekeeper standing guard beside him, but he gives no indication that he thinks this is out of the ordinary. So when the door hisses up and open, Peter climbs in.

The first thing Peter notices when the hover car hums to a stop is how beautiful the house is.

It’s far larger than any of the houses he’s been taken to before, and much further from the bustling city buzz of the Capitol itself. It sits solitary and expansive in what feels like the middle of nowhere to Peter. The land is shrouded in trees, safely shielding it away from the prying eyes of the Capitol.

Whoever lives here enjoys their privacy, Peter thinks as he steps out of the car, and is obviously important enough to be allowed it.

He would feel a twinge of pride at guessing that right if he weren’t so damn nervous.

The air is cooler up here, crisper and fresher. Peter wants to bottle it up and take it home with him, open it beneath Aunt May’s dear little face and watch her eyes sparkle again as she inhales real, clean air—not the factory smog they still breathe all the way in the Victor’s Village.

Peter takes a deep breath for her.

The image of May is sharp and clear in his mind as he makes his way up the neat cobblestone walkway. The soft pleats of wrinkles around her eyes when she smiles, the silver hairs that have started to wink at her hairline, her laugh.

Peter had been given two options. Whore himself out to the Capitol, and May would live. Disobey, and May would die. It was a simple decision.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that.

He walks up the elaborate marble steps to the front doors, the beautiful black boots he’s dressed in for this evening clicking quietly against the stone. The doors are twice as tall as he is, made of beautifully cut dark red mahogany, and fitted with gilded gold handles that Peter doesn’t doubt for a second cost more than everything he’s ever owned. He takes a final moment to fidget with his clothes—not out of the desire to impress his host but to ensure he wouldn’t be yelled at (or worse) for looking _unkempt_ like the last time.

Peter runs a hand through his hair.

He hears a lock click inside and the heavy wooden doors creak open before Peter even has to knock, which must mean there’s video surveillance somewhere _._ He glances up as tactfully as he can, but doesn’t see anything before the Avox of the house is welcoming him inside with a sweeping gesture.

Peter nods at her, offers her what he hopes doesn’t seem like a pitying smile. He always wants to be friends with them. It breaks his heart that he can’t.

Peter steps inside and the house practically swallows him as the Avox closes the massive doors behind them.

Somehow, it feels even bigger on the inside, like the outside of the house was simply a trick of the eye. The foyer is massive, with two grand staircases trailing up either side, meeting in the middle and branching off to new and even larger parts of the house, Peter is sure. There is a large solid gold chandelier hanging imposingly from the ceiling, casting everything in a wash of warm light.

Peter has never felt cheaper in his life.

The Avox beckons him to follow her up the right side of the staircase.

Peter adjusts his collar as they ascend the stairs, the silver of his faux armor glinting in the light. The silver certainly doesn’t match the gold accents that ornament the house, and Peter wonders morbidly if this is the kind of person who will slap him for not being the perfect accessory to his home décor.

At the top of the stairs, the Avox leaves him, gesturing down a hallway that stretches out illusively before them. Peter's head starts to swim. How big _is_ this house? He swears the further he walks, the further away the door at the end appears. He stops and blinks, but it still seems like it is an impossible distance away.

He starts to walk a little faster, but the hallway keeps sprawling distressingly onward. Peter starts to wonder if he’s going crazy, because he’s passing wall hangings and sconces and mirrors but the door still looks a half a mile away until it’s not and Peter nearly smacks right into it.

Peter’s breath wavers unsteadily and he presses his hands flat against the door, which is large and wooden and very, very real. But it can’t be.

He looks back down the hallway.

It looks like any other hallway.

Peter shakes his head. It must have been the light? Or his nerves. Or all those sconces, maybe.

He straightens his collar once more, his pulse fluttering unevenly under his skin, and knocks three times.

The door opens, though no one is there.

Peter takes that as his invitation and edges inside.

The room looks more like a ballroom than a bedroom. It is a dark shade of red and very dimly lit, with the highest ceiling Peter’s ever seen. There are two massive, arched windows on the wall opposite the door, framed with velvet curtains that cascade in luxurious waterfalls from the ceiling to the floor. In between the windows is a pair of french doors, etched in gold, opening outwards onto a marble balcony, on which stands a man.

He leans on the ornate railing with a drink in his hand, his back to Peter as he looks out at the skyline of the Capitol, which peeks over the trees in the distance. 

He takes a slow sip of his drink. Peter watches him warily, waits for him to make the first move.

“Peter Parker.” 

His voice sounds like the color of the drink in his hand. Rich and ambery and full.

Then he turns, and Peter has to take an inconspicuous breath to control the way his heart skips.

He’s...handsome. _Incredibly_ handsome. Honestly, Peter is surprised; this is a man who can clearly have anyone he wants, and for some reason he wants _Peter?_

Peter ignores the excited butterflies in his stomach so he can think. This is someone who likes to feel powerful. Someone who wants to feel like he’s taming the untamable, maybe? He’s older than Peter, but young enough that it strikes Peter as strange for him to be so excessively, incontinently rich. The richest clientele Peter has don’t even _touch_ this level of extravagance, and none of them are as young as him.

Or as handsome.

He’s broad, and bearded, with thick hair messily slicked back from his forehead. Like he’s been excessively carding his hands through it. He’s wearing a nice black suit, the jacket of which Peter can see is draped over a plush chair. It’s not a stereotypically over-the-top Capitol suit, but it’s definitely expensive. The sleeves of his shirt are rolled up and a few buttons are undone at the top, so Peter can see his skin.

Then he smiles easily, and Peter's stomach flips.

“You’re even more lovely in person.”

Peter has done this enough not to blush at a line like that but he _does._ God, he wishes this man looked like his last client.

“Thank you,” Peter replies, somewhat bashfully. He’s too flustered to get a solid read on him yet, to figure out which Peter the man wants him to be. He carefully refrains from saying anything else— _you’re not too bad yourself—_ until he knows how to perform for him.

“You want a drink?” he asks. Peter simply shakes his head.

Peter watches him as he saunters into the room and sets down his empty glass tumbler on a bar cart, trying to keep his marveling to a minimum. His marveling, however, must look a bit deer-in-headlights because the man looks up at him and smiles again.

“Relax, Peter, I don’t bite,” he reassures him, but not before adding a sly, “unless you want me to.”

Peter is actually furious with himself for blushing at that. 

“How many times have you heard that line before,” the man laughs. He crosses his arms over his chest, his smile almost deceptively inviting. 

“Too many times to count,” Peter confesses, “but if it makes you feel better, it’s the first time it’s worked.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Do you say that to every strange, lonely man who pays for the pleasure of your time?” he asks, smirking, as he starts to make his way across the room.

Now it’s Peter’s turn to laugh. “The pleasure of my time?”

The man shrugs, and he stops a little ways away from Peter. Not close enough to touch without taking at least a few more steps. His eyes rake up and down Peter’s figure. “Among other things,” he says darkly.

He’s enjoying this. The drawing-it-out. The verbal foreplay.

Alright, Peter thinks. He’ll play.

He’s good at games.

Peter walks past him, careful to keep an arm’s length between them, and towards the balcony. He can practically feel the man undressing him with his eyes.

“You have a beautiful home,” Peter calls back to him, running a hand over the lush velvet curtains.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” he says, and _oh_ his voice is closer behind him than Peter thought it would be. “Perks of my job.”

“And what kind of job affords you a place like this?” Peter asks, not very subtly. He can’t figure it out based on context clues (and that frustrates him a little), but maybe he can flirt it out of him? Generally, the men who buy him love to talk about themselves. Some of them are weirdly cagey about their identities, but this level of affluence doesn’t exactly suggest anonymity.

Peter turns around and _shit_ , the man is most definitely close enough to touch now, and Peter is backed up against the french doors with nowhere to go.

Then he smiles, that easy, disturbingly tranquil smile, and his blue eyes sparkle.

“Curious, are we?” he asks, his hands in his pockets. 

Oh. He has to keep himself from touching. Peter can use that.

He sits into his hip and looks up at him through his obscenely long lashes. “Usually, the men I meet with jump at the chance to brag about their fancy jobs.”

“Well, Peter.” He grins and leans in, like he’s telling Peter a secret. “I’m not the men you usually meet with.”

And then he walks away.

“Then who are you?” Peter blurts out, dropping his façade. Now he’s getting really frustrated. “If you’re so different than them.”

Peter can play the sweet, eye-batting, salivating slut all day long, but he gets the sense that’s not what this man wants. What _does_ he want?

The man runs a hand over his beard. “I'll give you three guesses.”

Peter pouts. “Do I get a hint?”

He scoffs fondly. “The puppy face thing? Doesn’t work on me, honey.”

A diabolical thrill up his spine chases the last sensible thought out of Peter’s brain. “Four guesses.”

The man whistles. “If it takes you four guesses to figure out who I am, I think I'm wasting my money.”

Peter's face flushes, though this time it’s humiliation that burns through him. The man looks disinterestedly at his expensive watch.

“You want me too bad to throw me out,” Peter says quietly, his voice clipped with anger.

“You’re very perceptive,” he muses, idly examining his wrist.

“Or you’re not very good at bluffing,” Peter bites back. 

_Now_ he looks up. Peter likes being right. 

He crosses his arms. “So why make me guess?”

The man thinks for a second, runs a hand through his hair. He looks at Peter and his eyes are frighteningly blue.

He smiles and says, “I love a good game.”

Peter's thoughts click into place so quickly his head starts to spin, and he guesses the man can see it on his face, because he tilts his head innocuously and smirks. 

“Still need that fourth guess?”

Peter fists a hand in the curtains. Something to keep him tethered to the ground. He should just jump off the balcony.

Quentin Beck, Head Gamemaker of the 76th Hunger Games, sits on his bed and sighs, like it had physically taken something out of him to keep up the act for so long. The sigh turns into a laugh, and Peter wonders how he ever thought he was attractive.

And then Quentin looks at him, and Peter can’t pretend he’s not.

He feels sick.

Quentin chuckles. “You know, I'm a little surprised it took you so long.”

How could Peter be so stupid? He should’ve known from the second he walked into the house; from its sheer size—that alone screamed importance, a level of _celebrity_ —from the delusive length of corridor that nearly made Peter lose his mind.

Of course.

Quentin’s Gamemaker signature was playing mind games. Drones that projected lifelike illusions that turned tributes against one another or simply drove them insane, hidden gas valves that pumped the arena full of hallucinogenic green mist that smelled like what attracted each of the tributes the most. It lulled them into a false sense of security and then dosed them hard enough to give them a bad trip, sending most of the tributes spiraling into debilitating paranoia or, in the worst cases, a murderous frenzy. 

The Capitol loved it.

He was also the first Gamemaker to remove himself from the public eye as much as possible. _Enjoys his privacy_. He canceled all his scheduled television appearances to add to the air of mystery, and hadn’t even been in the Gamemaker box in the training room to watch the tributes. He must have watched them from a separate room with video surveillance.

Peter’s nightmares crawled with drones, swam with the scent of spearmint, inducing him into a vulnerable enough state to believe that May was _really there,_ and she was _really_ screaming for Peter to help before she was murdered right in front of him. Cloying dreams that twist and taunt him with visions of big brown eyes and a mess of tangled brown curls.

And he is at the behest of the man responsible for those nightmares for the entire night.

On cue, Quentin props himself up on his elbows, the collar of his shirt falling open.

Peter has to turn away.

He hears the bed groan and he knows Quentin is stalking up behind him, his easy prey. Peter’s fist is white-knuckling the velvet curtain and he feels bad for a whisper of a moment because velvet is not meant to be manhandled like this, velvet is meant to be stroked or brushed gently against the face or admired from afar, and here Peter is, gripping it like a lifeline because if he lets go he’ll pitch himself off of Quentin Beck’s gorgeous, picturesque balcony.

What’s one more death on his hands?

“Come on, now,” Quentin hums, and Peter flinches when he feels Quentin’s hands, big and warm, gently prying his fingers from the thick fabric of the drapes.

A man like him shouldn’t be allowed to have a gentle touch.

It infuriates Peter, to have played into his dumb game so willingly. He feels naïve, gullible, embarrassed that he ever felt like he had the upper hand. That he ever felt _in charge._ That he let himself be seduced by him. Quentin knows he’s handsome, and Quentin also probably knows that most of Peter’s other clients are _not_ and he used that to his advantage. He let Peter flirt with him because he knew that the minute Peter realized who he is, he’d be appalled.

Quentin gets off on knowing that despite who he is, Peter is still attracted to him.

“Don’t touch me,” Peter whispers.

Much to his surprise, Quentin lets go. He hears his footsteps retreating and he feels like he can breathe again.

“I'm not gonna hurt you, Peter,” Quentin sighs. Peter hears him pour himself another drink. “Believe it or not, I have no interest in taking advantage of you.”

“Do you want an award,” Peter asks flatly, and Quentin has the audacity to laugh.

“Yeah, actually,” he raises his drink, “I think I deserve that.”

“You’re an _asshole,”_ Peter snaps.

“Tell me something I don't know,” Quentin mutters, and sits back down on the bed.

A long, deadly silence passes. Quentin doesn’t get up, doesn’t advance on Peter and shove him to his knees or sneak up behind him and drag him to the bed, kicking and screaming.

They just exist, silently, angrily, in the same room for a strange moment.

“So why…” Peter manages, taking a shuddering breath before turning to face him again. “Why am I here? If you don’t want me?”

Quentin tosses back his entire drink.

“So you can keep torturing me? Does that make you feel _powerful,_ Beck?” Peter is shaking, but for some reason, he finds himself walking towards him. “You’re bored without the Games, you need _something_ to keep you entertained. Is that what this is?”

Peter finds himself right in front of Quentin, standing between his knees. He’s breathing hard, _panting_ , his shoulders tense, his spine vibrating like he’s made of electricity.

Quentin just reaches up and touches Peter’s face.

Something shatters in Peter’s chest.

Quentin’s fingertips brush over his cheekbone as he rests the palm of his hand against Peter’s cheek, his thumb tracing back and forth across his skin.

Peter doesn’t know where to look, _anywhere but him._ So he closes his eyes.

He finds himself thinking about the vastly empty empire of Quentin’s house. How small the two of them are inside it, tucked away in the corner of its hollowness. How big this moment still seems.

How lonely it must be, in his desolate castle on the hill.

“I never said I didn’t want you,” Quentin murmurs, his hand warm against Peter's face, “but I’m not paying for a mediocre fuck from someone who doesn’t want it.”

Peter realizes, foggily, that Quentin’s not getting off on Peter’s forbidden attraction to him.

He wants Peter to want him as badly as he wants Peter.

And, very hazily, all of it starts to make sense. The flirting, the guessing game, the reluctance to touch before Peter knew who he was. Because if he had, Peter would never have forgiven him. The attempt to differentiate himself from Peter’s other customers. It wasn’t Quentin boasting. It was the truth. 

Quentin really isn’t like his other clients. Part of the excitement of it for most of them is that Peter doesn’t want it. That he _has_ to be there, and they can do whatever they want to him. But not Quentin Beck. Peter's head hurts at the disgusting complexity of the man before him, who apparently had no problem torturing innocent children, but wouldn’t take a thing from Peter unless it was willingly given.

“Since when.” Peter's voice is soft and analytical. His problem-solving voice, May calls it. “When did you first…”

It annoys Peter that can’t finish the sentence. He can beg for someone to fuck him, on his hands and knees with desperate tears in his eyes, but he can’t ask Quentin how long he’s wanted him for. That’s too vulnerable for Peter Parker!

“Your evaluation,” Quentin replies, and Peter opens his eyes, watches him remember. “Always thought you were pretty, but—” he shakes his head “—then you were smart. And strong. So many of them walk in there like they’re already dead.”

Peter tenses.

“But not you,” Quentin finishes, looking him in the eyes for the first time in a long time. “That’s when.”

Quentin’s hand falls from Peter's face. Instantly, and shockingly, Peter misses it. He hasn’t been touched like that in a long time.

“Okay,” Peter breathes.

He doesn’t know what else to say. He’s still assessing all this new information in his brain but some deeper, more primal part of him is crying out for Quentin to touch him again, or wrap his arms around him, or grab him and throw him on the bed and have his way with him.

Peter _does_ know that he’s balancing on the edge of a very sharp knife. He should walk away, out of Quentin’s gravitational pull, far enough away to keep him safe from doing something he might regret. Like fisting his hands in the collar of Quentin’s shirt and inching closer to him. He smells like cedar and smoke. And whiskey. And...spearmint.

The knife is teetering underneath him.

“You should go.”

Quentin stands, puts a hand on Peter’s chest, and literally _pushes_ him out of his way. Peter stumbles back and catches himself on the bar cart. The bottles clink together violently.

“What the hell?”

“Not like this,” Quentin says roughly, and he’s already walking to the door. Throwing Peter out. No. Peter’s not going to go pretending like _he’s_ the one that’s done something wrong.

“Then like _what?”_ Peter hurls back. “It’s never gonna be different, Beck.”

Quentin stops at the door.

“I’m never gonna be here of my own _free will_ ,” Peter laughs, sardonic. “I’m always gonna be the Capitol’s plaything.”

Quentin looks back, and Peter hates that he’s the one looking like a kicked puppy when Peter is the one getting thrown out.

Then suddenly, Quentin’s expression hardens, and he looks so much more like the man who tortured Peter in the arena than the one who spoke softly and touched him reverently.

“Out,” is all he says.

Peter’s blood is boiling. He should be _glad_ to leave, should skip out of here with a smile and never look back. But he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t know what he’s angrier about, being thrown out or wanting to stay.

But Peter won’t change his mind by arguing with him. So he drops his chin in calculated defeat, not missing the way Quentin isn’t looking at him.

Can’t look at him.

Peter stops in front of him, angrier _still_ when Quentin still won’t look him in the eyes, like Peter is a petulant child and he doesn’t want to reward his bad behavior.

“You can’t break me, Beck,” Peter says quietly, “you already did.”

Then he walks out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u for reading! comments are better than breathing oxygen 💖💖💖


	2. why don't you run from me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Stop it, Beck,” Peter snaps. “Stop acting like I did something wrong. You’re the one who kicked me out. I didn’t want to—”
> 
> Quentin’s eyes flash at that, alarmingly and intensely blue.
> 
> Peter lowers his voice. “I didn’t want to leave.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's chapter two!!!!!! happy reading
> 
> tw; nightmares, choking, mention of rape/assault

Peter is used to the bad dreams. 

He’s most frequently afflicted by nightmares that wake him in the middle of the night like he’s been struck by lightning, his muscles twitching and his nerves a confusing tangle of frayed electrical wire. The plots of these nightmares are mostly recurring; he’s in the arena, he’s tripping, someone he loves is dying and he’s unable to stop it. The same recycled torment every night. It’s easy to coax himself back to sleep when he’s used to the echoic nightmares that live in his subconscious.

Sometimes, he wakes only to find himself suspended between the realm of nightmare and reality; his limbs frozen and his heart pounding and he can’t _move_ and it’s as if something is sitting on his chest, pushing all the breath out from him and suffocating him and something sharp presses into the pliant skin of his throat—

But then he’s lurching upright, his breath is falling back into his lungs, his limbs buzzing with a fresh rush of blood. The only trace of the monsters is the lingering feeling of something sharp against his neck. 

But Quentin Beck has stirred up something dark and vile inside of him; has set loose something that had been laying dormant before Peter met him, now slowly slithering out of the murky depths of his brain. Something that wakes Peter up to the sounds of his own screams, that renders him violently trembling and weeping. Flashes of gore, red and running with blood, crowd his overstimulated brain until he’s wailing at the top of his lungs, pulling at his hair and choking on his own sobs. A matted mess of dark curls, lifeless brown eyes.

May comes frantically running to his side, and she holds him as he weeps, kissing his hair and whispering to him _you’re safe, it’s alright, nothing can hurt you now._ She tells him she’ll stay with him until he falls asleep, but it’s she who falls asleep by his side while Peter’s still settling into reality, absently twitching and staring at the ceiling. He stays like that until the sun rises, flooding his room with pure morning light, until May wakes up and asks him how long he’s been awake.

Not long, he lies.

He barely sleeps. He becomes more and more accustomed to dragging himself through the day on one or two hours of sleep a night, three if he’s lucky. Every night is a different, reality-bending horror show, and every night he wakes screaming and sobbing alone in the dark of his room, stifling his cries into his pillow so as not to wake May.

He knows the nightmares aren’t real. He knows it’s just a product of the lingering paranoia that burrowed inside his mind during the Games. But it never gets any less terrifying waking up and slowly realizing that though he’s awake, he’s still in a dream; and he’s learned better than to leave his bedroom during these night terrors, even when that means covering his ears and forcing himself to ignore the screams just beyond his bedroom door.

So most nights, Peter lays awake in protest. He does breathing exercises, works out complicated equations in his head backwards and forwards, anything to keep himself from falling asleep. Or worse, thinking about Quentin.

This is all his fault. The dark circles under Peter’s eyes, the shadows hovering under his cheekbones, the distant look on his face because he’s so exhausted that he’s fallen asleep with his eyes open and standing up. The wrinkles on May’s forehead digging deeper into her skin with worry. It’s all Quentin’s fault. Peter has never been inclined to anger easily, but the thought of Quentin Beck sleeping fitfully and soundly makes him want to punch a wall.

(If Peter can’t sleep at night, how does _he?)_

Peter spends an inordinate amount of time having imaginary arguments with Quentin in his head. Peter wins them all, of course. He daydreams about all the scathing things he’ll say to Quentin, plays out dozens of scenarios in his mind of what could happen when Peter sees him next. Most of them end with Peter slapping Beck squarely across the face. Some of them end with Peter storming out as Quentin begs for him to stay.

One of them ends a little differently than that.

But when Peter’s stylists come marching through his door two weeks later looking incredibly relieved, kissing his cheeks and waltzing around without a care in the world, Peter doesn’t have to ask to know that he isn’t seeing Quentin again.

It stings. But what had he expected? For Quentin to have him back and _apologize_ to him? For him to be sorry at all? Quentin murders children for a living. He doesn’t have the capacity to feel sorry.

Peter is delirious with sleep deprivation and anger. He floats through the next four days in the Capitol, doesn’t feel a thing, not even when he’s choked to the point of unconsciousness and wakes up to find that the man had finished while he was passed out. He’s sick to his stomach when he finds himself feeling grateful that he’s gotten some rest that isn’t plagued with nightmares. He comes back home drained, bone tired, and essentially dead on his feet. 

Instead of going home, he goes next door.

He knocks politely but when no one answers, he lets himself in.

Tony, surprisingly, isn’t passed out in a pile of his own vomit. Peter finds him very much awake and sitting at his dining room table, drinking straight from a bottle of whiskey.

“Pete,” Tony says, raising the bottle to him. “You look like shit.”

“I need a drink,” Peter says weakly.

Tony looks at him over his glasses. “Kid.”

“Don’t _kid_ me,” Peter mutters, too worn out to put up much of a fight. “Just—please.”

Tony nods. He seems, actually, pretty sober to Peter. He gets out of his chair without tripping and walks towards Peter in a straight-ish line. He hasn’t seen him like this in awhile. 

He hasn’t seen him in awhile at all.

Peter’s hit with a wave of guilt. He hasn’t been to see Tony in too long. He’s sure Aunt May has been taking care of him in Peter’s absence, but it’s not her job. Peter is the one who visits and keeps him company and cleans up after him. The last time he was here, Tony had broken every item of dishware in his kitchen. 

Peter understands why he drinks. Tony has the misfortune of having to relive his trauma every year when the Games roll around and he’s responsible for the life of another two children he didn’t ask to keep alive.

Peter is only his second Victor in thirty-four years.

“Sit down, make yourself at home,” Tony says, gently clapping him on the shoulder. “Lemme get you a glass.”

Peter does, and when Tony returns, he has a second bottle of whiskey in hand and a glass tumbler not unlike the one Quentin—no. Peter isn’t thinking about him right now. Peter came here specifically to Not Think About Him.

Tony pours him a small drink and slides the glass over to him. 

“Don’t tell your aunt,” he warns, pointing a finger at Peter warily.

Peter huffs out a laugh at that, grabs the glass, and before Tony can say _cheers_ Peter has tossed back his drink in one go. His face twists and he coughs wetly. Tony eyes him carefully, his hand around the neck of his personal whiskey bottle. 

“Damn, kid,” Tony says, as Peter is still spluttering out coughs. 

Peter plunks his glass on the table. “Another.”

Tony raises an eyebrow.

“...please.”

Tony takes a second, but he pours him another glass, even smaller than the last.

Peter knocks it right back.

“You wanna talk about it?” Tony asks pointedly. Peter shakes his head, his eyes screwed shut as the whiskey burns down his throat and blooms in his chest.

“Suit yourself.” Tony shrugs and collapses back in his chair, taking a drink from his own bottle effortlessly. Advantages of being an alcoholic, Peter supposes.

The alcohol is starting to buzz through his blood, a warm tingling sensation settling in his limbs. He sits in the chair across from Tony, leaning his elbows on the table and pressing his face into his hands. Maybe he does want to talk about it? He doesn’t know. He’s very aware of his legs.

“I can’t sleep,” Peter finally says, muffled behind his hands.

“What?”

Peter looks up. “Can’t sleep.”

“Nightmares?” Tony’s voice is quiet with understanding.

Peter nods. He doesn’t need to go into detail. 

“Yeah,” Tony sighs, “me too, kid.”

“I just want them to _stop,”_ Peter groans, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes til he sees stars.

“I know,” Tony says, and Peter hears him set his bottle down on the table.

“What do I _do?”_ Peter asks, looking up at Tony. His eyes are bloodshot and his cheeks are red with drink.

“Not this,” Tony replies smartly, reaching out and taking Peter’s empty glass away from him. “It’s not gonna fix anything. Trust me,” he chuckles sadly.

Peter rakes his hands through his hair, leans even farther forward on his elbows. His fingers are numb.

“I met Quentin Beck.” The words fall out of his mouth. His name tastes like whiskey.

Tony sits up in his chair suddenly. His glasses fall down his nose, and he’s watching Peter with wide eyes. “What? _When?”_

“A couple weeks ago,” Peter says, staring intently at a polished whorl of wood in Tony’s kitchen table. “My last trip. He...you know.”

Tony shakes his head in disbelief. “Christ, Pete.”

“I didn’t know it was him,” Peter confesses, blinking at the table. He hedges a glance at Tony, who looks like he’s going to pass out or throw his bottle at the wall or maybe both. He quickly adds, “he didn’t do anything to me.”

Peter wonders why the hell he’s defending Quentin. He’s supposed to be mad at him.

“I’m fine,” Peter lies emphatically, “really.”

“That son of a bitch,” Tony growls, taking a long pull from his bottle before slamming it down on the countertop. Peter jumps. A drop of whiskey lands on his cheek. “I’m gonna kill him.”

“Tony…”

“I’m gonna _kill him.”_

“No you’re not,” Peter says, and Tony grumbles something unintelligible, pinching the bridge of his nose and flinging his glasses carelessly onto the table. Peter wipes the whiskey from his face.

Tony takes a breath. 

“It’s natural for nightmares to intensify,” he explains slowly, “in response to events that trigger traumatic memories. It’s not dissimilar to reopening a wound before it’s healed and then giving it a salt rub.”

Peter knows this. And Tony probably knows that Peter knows this. But Peter will listen and pretend that he doesn’t if it helps Tony back off the ledge of righteous anger. They don’t need another kitchen incident. He just got new plates.

“They’ll calm down soon enough,” Tony reassures him, but Peter still leans over the table and grabs the glass back from him.

Peter holds out his glass expectantly and with a sigh, Tony pours him another drink, a much more generous one this time. 

“I’m sorry, Pete,” Tony says.

Peter sips at his drink tentatively, murmurs, “it’s not your fault.”

Tony will still blame himself. But in another parallel universe, Peter is dead. Tony is the only reason he’s alive. And, despite his unfortunate situation, Peter would rather be alive any day.

Of course, his being alive still meant that Tony failed someone else.

Peter leaves without finishing his drink.

He dreams that night of a terrifying voice booming in his head so loud that it knocks his brain against the walls of his skull. He dreams of falling, and falling, and a sickening _crack_ . He dreams of a silky smooth voice calling him _sweetheart_ and disembodied hands crawling all over him while he lies dead, but somehow conscious, on the floor.

And he wakes.

He sits in his bed for an hour, waiting for a sign that this is real life. That he’s really awake, that the nightmare is over.

Then he starts to formulate his plan. 

He stays up all night drafting ideas, talking quietly to himself and strategizing. He has to get back to Quentin. Maybe the nightmares will stop if he confronts him. Maybe they won’t, but if he sees him, he’ll at least be doing something. He can’t sit around anymore and wait for his nightmares to “calm down.” He’ll go crazy. 

And maybe he’s high on his lack of sleep, but he’s pretty sure this is a brilliant idea.

He’s going to ask the Peacekeeper traveling with him to take him to Quentin. He’s going to _lie_ and tell them that Quentin reached out to him privately, and that he will continue to do so whenever he wants to see Peter. It makes sense, Quentin being a Capitol celebrity. Especially considering he likes to keep himself out of the public eye. He’s afforded basically whatever he wants. And it makes sense that he’d want to keep his relationship with Peter as discreet as possible.

It’s genius.

So, two weeks later, exhaustion eddying at his sanity and his mind floating distantly away like a ship lost at sea, he’s shipped off to the Capitol and he prepares to carry out his master plan. He has three days to perfect his poker face, to make sure his lies are airtight and incontestable. It’s on the last night of the three-day long trip that he coyly says, as he slides into the backseat of the hover car:

“Don’t forget to drop me off at Mr. Beck’s place later tonight.”

He looks out the window, hoping he looks aloof and unassuming, as the Peacekeeper in the front seat turns to look at him. He doesn’t say anything, so after a beat, Peter carefully adds, “...did he not tell you?”

Nothing.

Peter rolls his eyes. “That’s so like him.”

Nothing. Peter realizes that the Peacekeepers might not actually be allowed to speak to him.

“I told him he needed to tell _someone,”_ Peter continues, trying not to ramble. Get to the point. “But Mr. Beck, he’s very particular about his private life? We have a special arrangement, he’s no longer going through the usual channels. He contacts me on his own now.”

The Peacekeeper still says nothing. He just...looks at him. For a terrifying moment, Peter worries he’s been caught, that maybe he’s a more miserable liar than he thought. 

Peter doesn’t know what’s emboldening him. Perhaps it’s the adrenaline of having nothing left to lose.

“And we’d better get a move on,” he adds definitively, “I hate to think who would get punished if I was to show up late.”

Oh God. Did Peter just _threaten_ him? There’s absolutely no way he’s getting away with this.

But the Peacekeeper nods tightly and the hover car purrs to life, soundlessly gliding down the street.

Peter’s heart is throbbing in his chest so hard and so loud that he’s certain the Peacekeeper can hear it, even through his helmet. But if he suspects anything, he’s not letting on. Peter may have successfully pulled off the ruse of the century—at least that’s how it feels. He has to bite the inside of his cheek hard to keep from beaming outright with pride. His blood is fizzing inside of him.

His first appointment flies past. He’s coasting on the high of his underhanded plot and the disbelief that it really worked. He’s actually going to see Quentin, after nearly a month; most of which Peter has been awake for. God, he can’t wait to see the look on his face when Peter walks through the door.

He thinks about Quentin while he’s riding the nameless man underneath him and he gives the performance of a lifetime.

He only starts to come down from his euphoria once the hover car pulls up in front of Quentin’s house. It’s as beautiful and imposing as he remembers, only this time, Peter can’t help but think about Quentin, all alone in that big house with nothing but his fancy velvet curtains to keep him company. 

Then he has to remind himself, again, that he’s supposed to be angry at him.

He runs down the cobblestone walkway and jogs up the marble steps to the house, and he has to give an effortful push to get the giant front doors to give, but thankfully, they aren’t locked. He slips inside and makes a mental note to add that to the laundry list of things he can give Quentin shit for.

The Avox who Peter met last time is nowhere to be found. He manages to remember the way to Quentin’s room alright, and when he arrives at the hallway he notices that it is, indeed, an ordinary hallway. Just another one of Quentin’s tricks.

Peter barges into Quentin’s bedroom without knocking.

He is...not there.

Peter frowns. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. Although, he supposes it was silly to just assume Quentin would be here. How many other rooms are in this house? It’s not like he lives in his bedroom. Quentin could be anywhere. What if he wasn’t even here? At work? The Games are only a couple of months away now. He’s probably already drawing up plans for this year’s arena and its various horrors. 

Peter feels very tired all of a sudden. He’d used his last available brain cells to devise his cunning scheme and put it into action, and the functioning bit of sense he has left over is telling him to _go to sleep._

He can’t go looking for Quentin. He’ll get lost. How many other illusions does Quentin have hiding in this mansion? A maze of corridors? Dead ends that appear out of nowhere?

He can tell he’s about to fall asleep standing up.

So he crosses the room, almost sleepwalking, and climbs into Quentin’s bed.

He’s too exhausted to be appalled by his behavior—not to mention his horrible manners. Quentin’s bedsheets are so soft and they smell _so good._ He burrows underneath the covers, enveloped in a comforting blanket of wood smoke and spearmint. Peter breathes it in, so consumed by his fatigue that it sends him straight to sleep, curled up in Quentin Beck’s lonely bed.

(He wakes twice.

Once as a hand is running through his hair. He leans into the touch with a soft sound, and falls back asleep as the same hands tuck the blankets tighter around him.

And once more as the sun is rising, rolling over and catching a groggy glimpse of a figure sleeping on a chaise lounge on the far side of the room.

He won’t remember in the morning.)

Peter wakes slowly. Sunlight is streaming endlessly into the room. As his eyes flutter sleepily, adjusting to the daylight, he notices this is the first uninterrupted night of sleep he’s gotten in a month.

It feels good until he remembers with a sharp breath that he’s in Quentin’s bed. He sits up fast, about to throw off the covers and clamber out of the bed—

“Good morning, sweetheart.”

He’s stretched out on a chaise lounge against the wall opposite Peter, a book laying open on his chest. He has one arm behind his head and the other draped across the back of his chair, and he’s looking at Peter with the slyest of smiles and that was _not_ the look Peter had been hoping to see.

And Peter’s trapped in his bed.

“Morning,” Peter says, trying not to let Quentin see how shaken he is. 

“Sleep well?” Quentin’s eyes are twinkling mischievously in the sunlit room.

“I didn’t mean to,” Peter says quickly, and it’s taking all his willpower not to apologize because he is not the one who needs to apologize.

“It’s alright,” Quentin replies, absently flipping a page in the book he’s not even reading.

“I was waiting for you,” Peter admits. Quentin’s eyes flick over to him, but then he goes back to his book and keeps lazily paging through. God, he’s a horrible bluffer. The Capitol’s master of deception, a bad liar. Must be why he needs all the illusions. “Where were you?”

“Library,” Quentin says. He’s not looking at Peter. He’s just randomly flipping pages in his stupid book.

The clipped answers, the lack of attention. He’s trying to get Peter to leave without doing it so aggressively this time. Why does he keep pushing him away? What is he so scared of?

“Oh.” Peter sits there, rather awkwardly, in Quentin’s bed. His clothes smell like him. “How long was I asleep?”

“I don’t know,” Quentin shrugs. “I came in at around eleven. I tried to wake you up, but you were out cold.” Quentin chuckles fondly at that. “I had to go downstairs and tell your little chaperone he could leave. He should be here soon to take you back home. Nice stunt you pulled there.”

Peter’s heart swells tentatively. “Thanks.”

“What did you even tell him?” Quentin asks, watching Peter curiously.

“That you contacted me privately. That we have a…” Peter averts his gaze, “...special arrangement.”

Quentin makes a sound that’s halfway between a scoff and a laugh. “And he believed you?”

“They don’t like to ask questions about what I do,” Peter cuts back.

Quentin smirks. “Clever boy.”

A warm flush creeps up Peter’s neck. He tells himself it’s just hot in here. Under all the blankets. In Quentin’s bed.

Quentin sets his book down and stands in the silence, putting his hands in his pockets and walking towards him. Peter nervously realizes that he’s slightly prone in the bed as Quentin sits on the edge of it, the mattress dipping under his weight.

“So much for never being here of your own free will,” Quentin remarks acerbically.

“You know what I meant,” Peter retorts, and Quentin laughs.

He gives him that easy look, the one that had made Peter’s stomach flutter so sweetly last time he’d been here, and asks, “Why are you here, Peter?” 

Peter takes a breath. “I want to talk.”

“What’s to talk about?” Quentin asks, turning away.

“Don’t do that."

Quentin sighs and runs a hand over his beard. Like he has to make the conscious choice not to be an asshole about this.

“Alright. What do you want to talk about, Peter?” he asks condescendingly. 

So he’s going to be an asshole about this.

Every time Peter thinks he’s getting somewhere with Quentin, the situation somehow takes a hard left turn, leaving Peter confused and irritated and wondering why he even bothered to come back. Unless this is all part of another game? Trick Peter into thinking that if he leaves this time, it’s his choice. Quentin must know by now that the only way Peter is leaving is if it’s on his terms.

“First of all—I’m angry,” he says simply. After a second, he clarifies, “at you. I’m angry at you.”

Quentin clicks his tongue. “Sorry to hear that.”

“Stop it, Beck,” Peter snaps. “Stop acting like I did something wrong. _You’re_ the one who kicked _me_ out. I didn’t want to—”

Quentin’s eyes flash at that, alarmingly and intensely blue.

Peter lowers his voice. “I didn’t want to leave.”

Quentin’s mouth falls open like he’s about to say something, but he decides against it.

“Don’t take it out on me just because you’re scared,” Peter finishes.

Quentin’s shoulders deflate.

“I don’t understand why you came back,” Quentin confesses, and Peter is struck by how oddly vulnerable he looks, sort of collapsed and so quiet Peter can hardly hear him, close as he is.

“I was having these...really awful nightmares,” Peter starts, feeling scarily exposed even without Quentin looking at him. “I mean, worse than usual. I don’t think I was sleeping more than two hours a night.”

“I’m sorry,” Quentin says softly.

“I thought if I saw you…” Peter huffs. “They’d stop.”

Quentin looks at him over his shoulder. Peter ducks his head to avoid his cool gaze. “I don’t know why. It’s dumb, but. I didn’t have any. Last night.”

None of the imaginary conversations he’d had with Quentin ended like this. And Peter could never, in his wildest fantasies, dream up the look on Quentin’s face right now. Like Peter is a painting in a museum, and Quentin can’t believe he’s seeing him up close for the first time. It makes him flush all over.

He is suddenly and embarrassingly reminded of his appointment last night, where he very nearly finished while moaning the wrong name. Quentin’s name.

The anger he’s been simmering in for the past month was a good enough excuse while he was away. But now that he’s here? In Quentin’s bed, not even a foot away from him? He’s kidding himself to think that he only wanted to come here to give Quentin a what-for.

So Peter tentatively inches down the covers, peeling away the barrier between him and Quentin, and leans closer.

“Quentin,” he breathes. 

His eyes are magnetically blue and Peter is a perfect North to his South, an absolutely opposite match, pulled inexorably towards him. Closer, and closer, and closer, the air static around them. He’s only a breath, a hair, a _kiss_ away when Quentin says:

“Peter, I can’t.”

For a second, Peter thinks he’s misheard him. He leans away quickly. Quentin doesn’t move.

“What?” Peter’s voice quavers.

“I can’t,” Quentin repeats, and somehow it hurts more the second time. “It’s not fair. I can’t do this to you.”

Peter’s heart breaks. A flood of emotions comes pouring out, and it fucking _hurts._ Peter’s chest is a swirling mess of ugly feelings. Does he want to cry or scream?

“But I _want_ this,” Peter insists, resisting the dangerous urge to reach out and touch him, “I want you.”

Peter’s never said that out loud before. He doesn’t even know if he’s let himself think it.

“No, you don’t,” Quentin laughs, but there’s no light in his eyes now. He’s gone inside himself. Hollow. He looks like the way he did when he kicked Peter out. “Trust me.”

“Oh, I don’t,” Peter reminds him, a little acid edging his words, “I do not trust you, Beck.”

“I can’t hurt you again.” Quentin has phrased it like an Inevitable. Not an If, but a When.

“I’m not _fragile,”_ Peter implores, “you don’t have to _protect_ me—”

“But I do,” he snaps, “because I couldn’t before."

Quentin sighs. Runs a hand over his beard. Peter is watching him with an uncomfortable ache in his chest. 

“I’m sorry, Peter. This was a mistake,” Quentin says, his voice flat. “You shouldn’t have come here.”

Peter is surprised to find he’s not angry at him. He’s just sad. And embarrassed. He’s so stupid, so naive. Just a dumb kid. All of the sadness pouring out of the crack in his heart is welling up in his lungs and overflowing, choking him, and he has to breathe through his nose and swallow so it all stays down, a burning rock in his throat.

He has to get out of here so Quentin doesn’t see him cry.

“Fine,” he rasps, his throat tight. He clenches his jaw and bites the inside of his cheek to keep his lip from quivering. He climbs ungracefully out of Quentin’s bed, gently shoulder-checking him, and picks up his shoes from the floor.

Quentin grabs his forearm with a firm hand.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, and Peter shudders out a sharp breath. There are so many things he could say to him. He scripted so many one-liners for himself that would _gut_ Quentin. But none of them feel right.

Peter tugs his arm from Quentin’s grip and says, “You’re a coward.”

And he leaves Quentin sitting there, perched sadly on the edge of his bed. 

(As Peter lies awake tonight, so does Quentin. His bedsheets smell like Peter now. He takes the lounge again, but still the smell of lavender and vanilla follow him into his dreams.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry boys i love to hurt u
> 
> big thank you to everyone leaving such sweet comments and kudos, it really means the world to me. let me know if you have any requests in the comments! i'm considering adding a chapter of peter's time in the games for some background into his nightmares/ptsd. if there's anything else you'd like to see i'm always happy to indulge my loving readers. i love u all!!!!!!!!! kisses x a million


	3. what are you wondering, what do you know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere close by, a camera flashes. Peter catches someone staring at them and giggling drunkenly out of the corner of his eye.
> 
> “Gamemaker falls for the Victor of his first Hunger Games. A love story for the ages.”
> 
> The vacant space in his chest is flayed apart. Raw.
> 
> “We’re giving them hope,” Quentin says gently. “If we can fall in love, against all the odds, anyone can.”
> 
> Was any of this ever real?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks coronavirus for forcing me to finish the third chapter finally
> 
> tw; vomiting, sexual harassment

_“Peter,” came a low voice in his ear. “Wake up.”_

_Already on high alert, Peter’s eyes flew open. There was no waking up slowly in the arena._

_It was still dark, but a trace of sunlight was brightening the tops of the trees on the horizon. They’d stuck to higher ground for the past day and a half, camping out near the forcefield at the edge of the arena. This year’s terrain was a deep valley, everywhere but the plateau at the center of the arena a steep and rocky uphill climb. This particular plan had been MJ’s; if they could get high enough to see the sections of the arena where gas was being released, it would give them a good idea of where the other tributes were at any given moment._

_MJ was now crouched beside him, her curly hair a wild mess around her face. She had a finger to her lips and she was looking at him with wide eyes._

_“What is it,” Peter mouthed._

_As if in reply, a cannon sounded. Then another._

_Peter looked at MJ, whose face had grown pallid. She was squeezing his arm so hard his fingertips were starting to go numb._

_“I heard screams, the Careers—"_ _She didn’t have time to finish before another scream rang out, faint and piercing. It was cut off by the sound of a third cannon._

_“Flash,” MJ breathed. Her untamed hair made her look like a frightened animal as she turned to Peter. “I think he just killed them all.”_

Peter wakes before the dream gets any worse.

His heart is racing like he had just lived it, MJ’s breath puffing in the crisp air, her hand wrapped around his forearm tight enough to bruise. Peter can feel the ghost of her grip on him still.

It’s always hard, seeing her in his dreams. It’s easier though when those dreams don’t end with her—

No. Peter squeezes his eyes shut. He tries to slow his breathing, practices the exercise May taught him a few nights ago. Breathe in blue, the color of calm, the color of floating in the sea. Breathe out red. The color of tension. The color of flame. The color of blood. The color of—

Damn it.

Peter makes a quiet noise and pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes. Tonight is one of those nights, he supposes, that he won’t sleep. Lately the severity of his nightmares waxes and wanes; some nights he sleeps soundly until morning, other nights he’s kept awake by the horrors that lurk at the edge of his subconscious. 

Every night is a coin toss.

Thankfully, Peter doesn’t have any appointments for the next week and a half, in preparation for the kickoff party for the next season of the Games. President Thanos would host, in accordance with tradition, a lavish, extravagant ball, to be attended by everyone who was anyone in the Capitol. Peter’s been to one of these parties before, one that was thrown “in his honor” when his Victory Tour ended. Peter has learned the people of the Capitol will use anything as an excuse to throw a party.

He will be invited, as will all victors from previous Games who haven’t yet gone insane or killed themselves. He will be dressed in his stylist’s finest creations, dolled up so he looks sinfully fuckable (though no one will be allowed to—he expects he’ll get a huge influx of customers in the weeks that follow), and sent off to entertain the Capitolites and pretend that he’s excited for the next installment of the Games.

He doesn’t expect Quentin will be there. Given his history of shying from the spotlight and going out of his way to avoid attention, Peter would be shocked if he showed up.

(There is that little Doubt, though, that keeps whispering dreadful things in the back of his mind.)

But when his stylists come fluttering into his house the morning of the party, excited to play dress-up with Peter for a _party!_ , he’s so overwhelmed that he forgets all about Quentin. They give him a snappy two minutes to grab his things for the overnight trip and practically shove him out the door, May calling after him with a big sad smile and a wave of her kitchen towel as he’s pushed into the back of a sleek black hovering limousine.

He barely has a chance to catch his breath in the air-conditioned silence before the door on the other side of him opens and Tony Stark slides into the car with a long-suffering sigh.

“Let’s get this show on the road,” Tony declares, clapping his hands together before pulling a silver flask out of his pocket. He looks at Peter conspiratorially over the rim of his sunglasses, askew on his nose. “Cheers.”

The ride to the train station doesn’t take long. Tony is already tipsy, his eyes half-lidded behind his tinted frames. This time of year isn’t easy for him. In a week, he’ll have another two tributes to mentor. Peter just prays they go quickly; he doesn’t think Tony could handle what happened last year again. 

When they head onto the train, Tony salutes Peter with two fingers and says, “I’m gonna hit the bar. Call me if there’s blood or fire.”

Peter’s stylists break off to their own compartments, and Peter is finally alone. 

He falls asleep on the couch after throwing a blanket over himself, the train purring to life as he drifts off.

_They ran._

_There was no one behind them as far as they could tell, but they ran anyway._

_They ran uphill, climbing over rock faces and boulders and tripping over wet moss. MJ ran on a sprained ankle and she was still up ahead of Peter, adrenaline and long legs propelling her deftly over the piles of rocks and through the dense trees._

_“In here,” MJ panted, already clambering into an opening she had spotted, a cave hidden by sharp, craggy rocks and shielded further by thick vines draped over the entrance like a decrepit curtain._

_Peter followed her, because that’s what he always did._

_The cave was dark and it smelled like old mud. Peter heard something dripping, distantly. He hoped it was water. He was so thirsty. As if reading his mind, MJ pulled out her canteen and shoved it at him._

_“Drink,” she commanded._

_Peter couldn’t see it but he felt for it anyway, closing his fingers around it after what felt like an eon of blind groping._

_There wasn’t much left._

_Before he could tell her, though, they heard something. A muffled, faraway sound—someone calling out for them. Taunting them._

_Flash._

_“Is it real?” Peter asked. The canteen was shaking in his hand. He pushed it back towards MJ. “Is it really—”_

_Someone screamed, and it wasn’t Flash._

_It was high-pitched, a girl’s scream._

_Both MJ and Peter stopped breathing._

_“Who is that,” Peter whispered after a beat of dead silence._

_They had seen the projected images of the dead Careers while they were running, and stopped to watch, out of breath. The funeral projections had never not been real before, so they had no reason to believe they weren’t. That left the two of them and Flash._

_So who had screamed?_

_“I don’t know,” MJ replied, and as her whispered voice echoed around the dark cave, they heard it again._

_Only this time, it was screaming for Peter._

_MJ’s hand found Peter’s in the dark; clammy, both of them trembling. Peter’s heart was beating so hard it hurt. Why did it sound so familiar?_

_“MJ.” Peter’s voice shook. “Tell me something only you would know about me.”_

_MJ froze. “Peter—”_

_Someone screamed his name again. Echoed MJ almost exactly. It sounded just like her._

_“Peter, that’s not me, that’s not_ real,” _she hissed, squeezing his hand. “I’m real.”_

_“Then prove it,” Peter begged, “please—”_

_As MJ screamed for him again, Peter gasped_

awake, sweating like he’d just run a mile and so, _so_ thirsty. He throws his blanket to the floor and stumbles to the kitchenette, his legs shaking, and drinks straight from the pitcher of ice water on the counter. He doesn’t know how long he’s been out. The sky is dark, stars zipping by as the train streaks down the tracks.

After demolishing the entire pitcher, panting, Peter collapses on the couch. Just as he starts to get his breath back underneath him, his train car hisses open and his stylists crowd into the room, dressed up and giggling and smelling of expensive Capitol perfume. They look at Peter oddly—sweaty, cold, and shaken up—as they drag him two train cars down, where the caboose has been transformed into a makeshift fitting room.

It dawns on Peter that he hasn’t thought about Quentin all day when he sees himself in the mirror for the first time.

They’ve dressed him in a gorgeous shimmering crimson _something._ Peter almost doesn’t know how to describe it. It’s a bodysuit of some kind, clinging to the curves and angles of his body like a second skin. It’s purposely missing its right arm, to show off Peter’s lean muscles, an intricately carved gold band wrapping around his bare bicep. The hem around his neck seems to melt into his skin, and Peter himself can’t even tell where he ends and the suit begins. He turns back and forth and watches the suit shift and shine, noticing it seems to be made of sheer gossamer, catching the light like raindrops pearling in a spider’s web. On his feet are freshly polished red boots with a tasteful platform heel to accentuate his slender legs.

He looks beautiful.

He looks _beautiful_ , and Peter thinks of Quentin now. How he would never be able to resist Peter looking like this: his hair slicked back just enough to keep his soft curls out of his eyes, his lips and cheeks dabbed with a gel that makes his skin flush with a warm red glow. His eyelashes, brushed with clear mascara to frame his doe eyes.

But Quentin won’t be there. And that’s for the best.

Then one of his stylists clips a gold band around his neck, to match the band around his arm, and Peter deflates. It looks like a collar. The metal is cold and uncomfortably tight—it probably has a tracker in it.

_I’m always gonna be the Capitol’s plaything._

Peter suddenly feels sick. What had made him feel so beautiful only seconds ago is now nauseating. The shimmering suit blinds him under the fluorescent light, the red fabric like blood pooling in the sun.

He runs to a trash can to throw up. 

His stylists simply tell him, tittering unhappily as they help him up, that he’s lucky he didn’t get any on the suit. They leave him there, acid burning his throat, and Peter stares at himself in the mirror until his image warps in the glass and he doesn’t recognize himself. 

He sits there until the train stops.

Their limousine is already waiting on the platform. Tony is wearing a simple black suit. Peter feels absolutely ridiculous in comparison.

Tony winces and pulls his sunglasses out of his pocket. “Jesus, your outfit is giving me a headache.”

“Not my fault you’re always hungover,” Peter mutters, yanking open the door and climbing into the car. Any other day he would kick himself for being so rude, but his nerves are already wearing thin and they still have a party to attend.

He wonders what MJ would say about the suit.

“You look nice, kid,” Tony says once he settles into his seat. Peter knows it’s as close to an apology as Tony is humanly capable of. “I don’t know anyone who could pull that off besides you.”

“Thanks.”

“Really. You’re very brave.”

“Thanks.”

“But I’m not taking off the sunglasses.”

They ride in silence the rest of the way to the Presidential Palace, Tony sipping occasionally from his flask and Peter staring out the window, forehead resting against the glass. He’s been to President Thanos’s mansion once before, and he expects the car to drive into the center of the Capitol, into the City Circle, but instead it starts to take them to the outskirts of the Capitol. And then outside the Capitol. And then even further outside the Capitol.

And Peter starts to get nervous.

If anything is wrong, Tony isn’t giving any indication that he’s aware, which means he either doesn’t care or he isn’t paying attention. Peter thinks both are very possible until he realizes Tony is asleep. He considers knocking on the glass that separates them from their driver, but why would their driver take them to the wrong place? This is the biggest party of the year and everyone knows where the President lives.

Peter feels on the verge of panic. He only knows one person who lives this far away from the Capitol itself. He feels like he’s going to vomit again.

The limousine slows, and then hums to an agonizing stop. Peter opens his eyes.

Oh no. Oh no, no, _no._

The house they’ve pulled up to. It’s Quentin’s.

Peter’s mouth goes completely dry. He’s definitely going to throw up again. He needs to get out of this car, breathe air that he’s not sharing with Tony, that isn’t ninety-nine percent cologne and whiskey breath. He hears the muffled noise of the party already, the distant laughter and chatter of the Capitolites and the music drifting beautifully and ominously through the air.

“We here?” Tony asks, groggy with sleep.

“This is his house,” is all Peter can say, blinking up at the mansion.

“Yeah.” Tony’s not listening. Just fixes his cufflinks. Peter wants to scream.

“This is Beck’s house.”

Tony immediately looks up.

“What? No,” Tony says, and he leans over to look out Peter’s window. “What the hell...?”

Everything is moving too fast.

Even if it wasn’t a tradition for the President to throw this party, it doesn’t make _any_ sense for Quentin to be throwing it. That doesn’t exactly correspond with the image he’s crafted for himself as Gamemaker. What happened? 

Peter’s sure he blacks out because he doesn’t remember getting out of the car or walking up the steps.

“You alright?” Tony asks furtively. Seems like his nap sobered him up a little.

“No,” Peter whispers.

There are two Avox at the front doors, which in Peter’s anxiousness seem to tower over him. They pull open the doors and the cacophony of the party crescendos over them in a deafening wave. 

“Stick with me, kid,” Tony reassures him, as quietly as he can over the noise. “It’ll be okay.”

Tony steers them through the churning crowd, his hands on Peter’s shoulders to guide him. It’s incredibly odd, being chaperoned by Tony through Quentin’s house, even though they’re walking through parts of the house Peter’s never seen before. There’s a ballroom, a study that’s bigger than Peter’s entire home, a bar. 

He can feel Tony resist the urge to peel off and make a beeline to the nearest alcoholic beverage.

“Go,” Peter says, waving him away for emphasis. “I’ll be fine.”

The way his pulse is pounding says otherwise, but he can’t force Tony to babysit him all night. That’s not fair. Peter can take care of himself. 

Maybe he won't even see Quentin. There’s so many people at this party, they might not even run into one another. That feels deluded at best.

“I’ll be fine,” Peter tells him again when Tony gives him that Look over his sunglasses. “Blood or fire.”

Tony seems reluctant, but he points at Peter as a warning. “Blood or fire, Parker.”

Peter nods and smiles, and that’s enough for Tony to turn to the bar and vanish in the mob of partygoers.

As soon as Tony goes, though, Peter feels the eyes of half of the room zero in on him like hungry sharks. He suddenly remembers what he’s wearing and realizes how dangerously vulnerable he could be without Tony beside him. He’s not here to work, but he knows everyone who’s staring at him is thinking about it. He’s certain most of his clientele is here tonight.

He feels like he’s back in the arena. He needs a strategy. He needs protection.

But for now, all Peter can do is hold his head high and put on his best game face. Pretend like he doesn’t feel the eyes on him, the death stares from people whose spouses drool over him as he pushes his way through the throng, the occasional hand at the small of his back (or lower).

Peter finally makes it outside, through the impressive back doors, open to invite a cool breeze into the stuffy house. Peter’s suit must be temperature-controlled, designed to regulate his body heat to keep him comfortable, or he’d be sweating profusely. 

There are two small staircases on either side of the patio, and Peter stands at a railing to overlook the rest of the garden. It is colossal, sprawling and beautifully maintained. There’s a large marble fountain, a cobblestone courtyard area functioning as an outdoor ballroom floor, and a gorgeous arching trellis of roses over it all. All Peter can think of is May’s face on Christmas, when she opened the tiny bottle of lavender perfume that she hadn’t been able to afford the year before and cried.

It doesn’t take long for Peter to spot Quentin in the crowd below, but when he does, he almost doesn’t recognize him.

He’s grinning, drink in hand. His beard has been neatly trimmed and his hair is carefully coiffed away from his face. He’s wearing a blood red suit with a gold chain around his neck, a matching gold chain draped from the right shoulder of his suit.

He’s dressed remarkably similar to Peter.

Quentin throws his head back and laughs so loud that Peter hears it all the way across the lawn. He claps the person across from him on the shoulder and says something that breaks the rest of the group around him into an uproarious fit of laughter as well. His eyes are bright, not clouded with guilt or anger as usual. Peter is not used to this charisma, this bright smile, this loud laughter.

He looks unfamiliar.

Quentin tosses back his drink. An Avox passes him and he hands off his glass to them without even looking, then picks up a champagne flute off the tray they’re carrying. 

When he locks eyes with Peter, his face falls, and Peter recognizes him again. 

Quentin suddenly seems wildly out of place; the loneliest man in the Capitol, even surrounded by all the people at his party laughing raucously and dancing and drinking and being merry. Everything around them slips into slow motion as he and Quentin stand off across the lawn. Peter grips the railing tight. Quentin’s jaw locks.

He takes a sip of his champagne and Peter watches the veil drop back over his face. Quentin’s eyes rake down Peter’s figure. He smirks. Winks. Turns back to his guests.

Peter was wrong about him being a bad liar. Quentin effortlessly returns to the conversation, animatedly telling a story as his guests look on, entranced. It seems he’s actually a very good liar; but something about being alone with Peter always manages to crack his façade.

Peter can’t stand at the railing all night. He glances around, wondering how many people caught him and Quentin staring contentiously at one another from afar. He _really_ doesn’t want to go down there—he wants to leave the party altogether more than anything—but he spots the uniquely familiar scarred back of Wade Wilson’s head and a shock of blonde hair styled in a mohawk that can only belong to Carol Danvers and his entire system washes over with pure relief. If he can just make it down there to them, his fellow victors, he can tuck himself under their wings and keep himself safe. Sure, Wade would hit on him relentlessly enough that Peter would be tempted to drown himself in the fountain, but it was better than nothing. Better than Quentin Beck.

But when he turns to head down the stairs, there’s a man blocking his way, his hand on the railing to keep Peter from breaking past him. He has a long hooked nose and slightly graying hair, and Peter doesn’t recognize him.

“How generous of the Capitol to lend you to us for the evening,” leers the man, his eyelids painted a threatening electric green. Peter feels uneasy just looking at him.

“Yes,” is all Peter can manage, apprehension stealing his voice from him.

The man takes a step closer, and Peter steps back in tandem but bumps into someone, a perfect opportunity for the man to snake an arm around the small of his back and yank him closer.

“How generous do _I_ have to be to get you alone tonight?” His voice drips with lechery.

“I’m very flattered,” Peter says, trying to play coy but sounding a bit choked, “but I’m not working tonight.”

“Oh, give it up. I’m sure for the right price you’ll drop to your knees like the slut you are.” His hand slithers down and Peter hisses in a breath when the man not-very-surreptitiously grabs his ass.

He wishes Wade and Carol would magically appear and rip this repulsive man off of him. Or that a pit would open up in the ground and swallow the man whole. Peter can’t very well slap him, not with all these people around, even though he’s not working tonight. He’s _not_ working tonight, he’s here as last year’s Victor, not as the Capitol’s kept boy. Still, that doesn’t seem to keep people from ogling and pawing at him like he’s some kind of expensive toy.

Then someone’s hand settles gently on his bare shoulder.

“Excuse me, honey,” comes Quentin’s sweet voice from behind him, “can I borrow you for a dance?”

This night is officially the worst. 

Quentin is the last person he wants to engage with right now, but that was before this entitled asshole came along. Now, Quentin is the second to last person Peter wants to engage with. Despite that, his perfectly-timed intrusion has Peter about to throw his arms around him and never let go.

The man doesn’t let go of him. Peter’s treacherously close to spitting in his face. He leans into Quentin, if only to squirm out of the other man’s grip.

“Wait your turn,” the man sneers.

Quentin’s hand tightens on Peter’s shoulder.

“It’s always my turn,” he says icily. Peter shivers.

And with that, Quentin is pulling Peter away, wrapping a protective arm around him as he turns and guides them down the other staircase. Peter is still reeling.

 _It’s always my turn._ Quentin had been watching him.

“I’m so sorry, Peter,” Quentin says in his ear as they make their way towards the dance floor.

“What the hell are you doing?” Peter’s voice wavers.

“Being your knight in shining armor,” Quentin replies, a smile playing at his words, “and asking you for a dance.”

“And what if I say no?” Peter challenges, stopping in his tracks.

Quentin’s mask slips momentarily, but then he’s laughing like Peter just told a hilarious joke and pulling him onto the dance floor by the hand, wrapping an arm around his waist and leaning in dangerously close.

“You need to play nice right now,” Quentin warns him quietly, swaying with Peter to the music.

“Give me one good reason,” Peter hisses back, splaying his hands against Quentin’s chest. He tries to ignore that he can feel Quentin’s heartbeat beneath his palms, that this is the closest they’ve ever been. “Don’t want me making you look bad?”

Quentin drops his head to murmur in his ear, “you’re smarter than this, Peter. Thanos is here tonight.” He gracefully spins Peter around, knocking a sharp gasp out of him, before pulling him flush against him. “If he catches you so much as looking at me the wrong way, there will be consequences."

Peter should have known better. Of course the President would be here. Just because he wasn’t hosting this event didn’t mean he wouldn’t attend.

“We’ve got an audience,” Quentin coaxes, “so pretend I just said something nice to you.”

“I hate you,” Peter replies quietly. The temperature-controlled suit can’t catch up to the rapid heat rising to his cheeks. “Like what.”

Quentin smirks. “You look ravishing tonight.”

Peter could punch him across the garden. This is so unfair. What was he _doing?_ Twice now he’s rejected Peter, and yet he keeps stringing him along.

“Don’t do that,” Peter mumbles, but he rests his head against Quentin’s chest anyway. He doesn’t want to look at him.

Thankfully, Quentin shuts up. They sway in silence to the violin melody that warbles through the air for a long moment.

“That’s why you’re throwing this party, isn’t it,” Peter asks as the music swells. “Thanos is making you.”

Quentin just nods. 

“It’s not very on-brand for you,” Peter adds sarcastically.

“You’d _think..._ ” Quentin looks around cautiously, “he’d let me do whatever I _want_ , considering the success of the Games last year.”

Peter goes stiff. Quentin continues to rock them back and forth to the music.

“But no,” he sighs. “The Capitol needs their celebrities and their gossip. And I’m no exception to that.”

Somewhere close by, a camera flashes. Peter glances around, catches someone staring at them and giggling drunkenly out of the corner of his eye. Peter knows what this must look like on the outside; the matching clothes, the dancing, the way Quentin keeps whispering in his ear. What is his angle here…?

Peter can’t help the terrifying thought that this is a trick of some kind. Another one of his fucked up games.

“What do you mean?” he asks tentatively, lifting his head from Quentin’s chest.

“Give them just enough of us to start rumors,” Quentin answers, “make them see what they want to see.”

Quentin twirls him effortlessly, Peter going pliant in his arms. He doesn’t have it in him to resist anymore. 

“Gamemaker falls for the Victor of his first Hunger Games. A love story for the ages.”

The vacant heart-space in Peter’s chest is flayed apart. Raw.

“We’re giving them hope,” Quentin says gently. “If we can fall in love, against all the odds, anyone can.”

Rescuing Peter from that man. Telling him the President is here. Peter thought he was protecting him, _helping_ him. This was never about protecting Peter at all. Quentin is just using him to further his own twisted narrative. It’s all another illusion. 

Was any of this ever real?

Peter steps back, and Quentin lets him, but not before raising his hand to his mouth and kissing his knuckles sweetly.

“You’re overselling it,” is all Peter says before he walks away.

He needs to be anywhere but here. Anywhere but this party, anywhere but Quentin’s house, but more pressingly, he needs to be alone. His cavernous chest is thrumming with a dull ache, the music and the endless white noise of the party making his head throb.

Quentin is too cowardly to be with him and too heartless to apologize for hurting him, for _exploiting him_ to the Capitol even more than he already is. He needs a drink. Or several. 

Fuck the Capitol. Fuck his obligations to appeal to the public. Fuck Quentin Beck.

He shoulders and jostles and _excuse me’_ s his way through the crowd as politely as he can stand, and as he’s about to head through the back doors, wide open like a vicious mouth, he turns over his shoulder and tries to find Quentin one more time—but he’s vanished into the swirling mass of people below.

So Peter goes inside. 

He weaves through the crowd, past the bar and through the ballroom and all the way into the foyer, and ascends one of the grand staircases and goes to Quentin’s room. He hates that it only adds fuel to the rumors Quentin is trying to start, but it’s the only place in the house he knows he can get some peace and quiet.

The closest he can get to leaving the party without leaving the party.

He pours himself a glass of deep red wine that smells like summer berries and sits on Quentin’s balcony, his legs dangling off the side. He listens to the sounds of the party drifting up to him, the music riding on the cool breeze. It’s sort of meditative, being so far away from it. He watches the lights of the Capitol in the distance, twinkling over the fence of trees around Quentin’s house. Shielding him from the world.

When he goes inside, he pours himself another glass and decides to snoop around Quentin’s room for a bit. Blame it on the alcohol. He goes into one of Quentin’s closets, larger than Peter’s own bedroom, filled wall-to-wall with expensive suits and clothes. He peruses a small bookshelf, scans through the first pages of a few books. Nothing gripping. Maybe later he’ll sneak into the library Quentin mentioned. He goes through some of Quentin’s drawers, sipping diligently at his wine, but he doesn’t find anything interesting there either. Nothing that gives him a clue into why Quentin is the way he is. 

Of course, it would be too easy for Quentin to keep a diary or a journal for Peter to happen upon.

He’s lying on the bed, two glasses of wine deep and bored out of his mind, when the door opens and Quentin walks in.

Or. Stumbles in. Is he _drunk?_

“I was hoping I’d find you here,” he grins, leaning on the back of the door.

He’s drunk. His hair is messier than it was an hour ago, his shirt collar unbuttoned and his jacket sleeves pushed up, his cheeks flushed red to match his suit.

“I was just leaving,” Peter tells him, standing up as quickly as he can without getting dizzy. He really doesn’t want to be around Quentin right now; especially when he doesn’t know what he’s like when he’s drunk.

Quentin cocks his head loosely. “Really.”

“I needed some space,” Peter clarifies, “I got some. Now I’m going back downstairs, if you don’t mind, _Beck.”_

“I do mind,” Quentin says, pushing off from the door and making his way towards Peter. “I said I wanted to see you, didn’t I?”

“Well, I don’t want to see _you_ ,” Peter snaps, but he doesn’t make an attempt to go anywhere.

“So you come hang out in my bedroom?” Quentin shrugs. “Makes sense.”

“It was either that or get touched up by total strangers,” Peter retorts.

“Thought it was your job to get touched up by total strangers,” Quentin says bluntly.

Peter is seething. “I _hate_ you _.”_

“Ouch. Twice in one night.” Quentin acts wounded, clutching at his heart. “Always so mean to me.”

Oh, Peter could strangle him.

 _“I’m_ mean?” Peter grits out, near the point of spontaneous combustion. “You hurt me, Quentin, and you’re too selfish to even acknowledge it? I don’t need an apology at this point—I don’t want one, but the least you could do is take some responsibility.”

Quentin looks, honest-to-God, taken aback. “I was trying to protect you—”

“Stop lying to me!” Peter exclaims. “I’m so sick of it! Everything that comes out of your mouth is a _lie._ And it’s on me for ever thinking I could trust you in the first place, I should have known better. But that’s naive little Peter Parker for you,” he says derisively, “he’ll believe anything.”

Quentin doesn’t respond. 

“And what,” he continues, “the _hell_ was that move you pulled tonight? I’m not a puppet for you to play with. I don’t want any part of your sad, perverted love story. _We’re giving them hope?_ That’s such bullshit. You can’t _use_ me like that.”

“Wait—what?” Quentin asks, blinking and confused. “Peter, I’m not using you—”

“You are!” Peter cries. He feels like he’s going crazy, the way Quentin is looking at him so bewildered. “I’m begging you to be honest with me for _once—”_

“Peter,” Quentin insists, “I’m—” he wipes his hands down his face “—I’m too drunk for this. The love story, it’s all Thanos’s idea. He made me. He said you knew. I would never…I _swear._ ”

Quentin looks so tired, running his hands through his messy hair and closing his eyes. He sits on the bed with a heaving sigh, his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. It's then that Peter understands.

Quentin isn’t using Peter. Thanos is using Quentin.

Using his feelings for Peter as a weapon against him, to get him to fall in line and come to heel. How long has Thanos known? Since the first time they met? Before?

How many times has the President threatened Peter’s life to get Quentin to do what he wants?

“I need another drink,” Quentin muses, his thumbs rolling circles in his temples. 

Peter knows Quentin’s not asking him to, but he goes to the bar cart to pour him a drink anyway.

“I’ll take a scotch,” he calls after him, “if I’m allowed to be picky.”

Peter doesn’t know which bottle is scotch, but he inelegantly pours him a glass of something that Might be scotch. And then pours himself a glass. He brings it to Quentin and stands in front of him awkwardly, drink extended as a sad peace offering.

“I’m sorry,” Peter says.

Quentin takes it from him. “Don’t apologize. I’m the one who should be—”

“Stop.”

Peter sits down beside him, a comfortable distance between them. Quentin drinks. Peter drinks. Thankfully, he doesn’t have a coughing fit. This is smoother and less painful to drink than whatever cheap whiskey Tony had given him.

“I don’t know how to do this.” Quentin’s words run together with inebriation.

Peter has never felt so close to him. “Me either.” 

“You really think everything I say is a lie?” Quentin asks softly.

“I don’t know,” Peter says honestly. “I mean, you don’t have a great track record.”

Quentin scoffs into his drink. “That’s fair.”

“I was angry,” Peter counter-offers. “I don’t think _everything_ you’ve said is a lie.”

He thinks back to the night they met, the way Quentin’s eyes shone with something like adoration when he talked about Peter’s evaluation.

Then Quentin nods, finishes his drink. _Jesus._ Peter watches him cautiously, the line of his throat as he tips his head back, the bob of his Adam’s apple, the cut of his jaw. It’s enough to make him have to take a sip of his own drink.

“How are your nightmares?” Quentin asks, looking at Peter.

He remembered. Peter can feel the alcohol settling into his stomach now, its tingling warmth building a furnace in his core. It’s either that or the way Quentin is looking at him. 

“Better,” he starts, hesitating as he thinks. His focus is fading, his thoughts clouded with the fog of drink and the uncertainty of the uncharted territory between them. “Well. Kind of. I don’t know.”

“You’re still having them?” 

Peter nods. He almost says something about MJ, about his dreams, but that would dampen the mood even more and Peter doesn’t want to know what Quentin would say about her. He knows. He watched it happen. He orchestrated it.

Quentin sits back, his empty glass in his lap. “I’m sorry.”

Peter is about to say _it’s not your fault_ but it is.

“I haven’t slept without one in…” Peter’s heart clenches. “Since the last time I was here.”

“Maybe you should spend the night here more often, then,” Quentin offers, his voice low.

Peter stops breathing, the air deathly still. It doesn’t feel safe to breathe it in.

“Beck—” he starts, but he never finishes because Quentin Beck leans over and kisses him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI I MISSED THIS!!! 
> 
> the self-quarantine is giving me plenty more time to write and thankfully this is a great creative outlet so i don't go insane while trapped in my house for however long it takes to ride this out...i can't wait to keep this story going!!! i've really missed writing it and hearing from yall! <3333333
> 
> let me know if u have any requests of what you'd like to see! i have a clear map of where the story is headed but i'm always open to new ideas and requests. sending love and hoping yall are staying safe during these weird, scary times <3


	4. why aren't you scared of me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I feel like I failed her,” Peter whispers.
> 
> “You were set up to fail,” he says, squeezing his hand, “and you’ll always fail if the game you’re playing is rigged against you.”
> 
> It’s the first time Peter’s ever heard him say a word against the Games. 
> 
> "You did what you had to do. It's not your fault."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow wow wow hi everyone THANK YOU for all the comments and kudos!!!!!!!! i love writing this fic and i love writing it even more knowing that yall enjoy it so much. <333333333333333333 forever!!!! happy reading my sweet baybees
> 
> (ps: i listened to “district 12 ruins” from mockingjay pt 1 pretty much on repeat when i wrote the arena scene, i highly encourage listening if you like to listen to music while you read like me xo)
> 
> tw; nightmares, panic attacks, graphic depictions of gore/murder. hooray

Quentin is kissing him.

Peter’s brain shuts off. Absolutely goes to sleep in his head. 

His unfinished glass of scotch falls out of his hand, spilling and splintering into pieces on the floor. Quentin’s hands cup his face, his beard scratching against his chin, his mouth slotting perfectly against Peter’s. He’s _k_ _issing him._ The world spins a million times slower, yet even that is a million times too fast because when Quentin pulls away, Peter is still in shock; his cheeks flushed, his jaw slack. Lips red. How do you breathe, again? Peter has forgotten.

“I’ve wanted to do that for such a long time,” Quentin sighs.

Peter thinks he’s malfunctioning. “I’m so sorry I think I broke that glass.”

“You definitely did.”

_“You kissed me."_

Something like worry flits across Quentin’s handsome face. “Is that okay?”

Peter’s heart pitches. His short-circuited mind starts running a crash course of Worst Case Scenarios: Quentin’s drunk and doesn't mean it, he wakes up tomorrow and regrets it, he gets bored with Peter after a week and tosses him aside like an old toy. Peter has lost enough in his life, he can’t lose this, too.

_Oh._

The realization smacks him like a train. This is all he has.

He clutches at Quentin’s sleeves desperately, like maybe he can keep him from running away again if he holds on tight enough. “You can’t take this back,” Peter tries to warn him, but he sounds choked, like he’s begging Quentin to stay.

Because he is. Because Quentin _could_ break him. And this is how: by giving him a taste of what he wants most, then ripping it away.

“Peter.” Quentin’s voice is gentle when he speaks. “I don’t want to.”

That’s all it takes for Peter to lean in with all the certainty in the world to kiss Quentin back, clinging to his collar with trembling hands to pull himself closer.

Everything explodes.

Quentin’s mouth opens against his and an embarrassingly wanton sound floats out of Peter’s throat, his filter gone fuzzy with alcohol and the high of Quentin’s cologne. He feels lightheaded, like he’s getting even drunker off the mere taste of alcohol on Quentin’s breath. Peter tips forward, desperately chasing _more more more_ despite that he can no longer tell which tongue is even his.

Peter should have known Quentin would be a sinfully good kisser. 

He grabs at Peter’s waist with one large hand, the other winding around the back of his neck to rake his fingers through Peter’s hair. He gives the gentlest tug and Peter gasps, his head tilting back just enough to break the kiss for a breathless moment.

“Jesus Christ,” Quentin rasps, “you’re so gorgeous.”

Peter has to hold his breath to keep from moaning at that.

Then Quentin’s hand slides to his hip and he’s pulling Peter towards him, maneuvering him with deft hands until Peter is straddling his lap. He presses a path of kisses down the soft expanse of his throat, biting soft red marks into his skin, and Peter can’t help the little noise he makes as Quentin expertly scrapes his teeth over his pulse point.

It’s foreign to Peter to be doing this and enjoying it. Touching. Being touched. It’s become such a transaction to him—a transaction that he never really wants to make. The strange intimacy of his connection with Quentin, the triumph of his feelings being reciprocated, and the dizzying way Quentin is holding him and kissing him is absolute sensory overload. Because this time he _wants_ to. Peter’s chest hitches and he feels like he might cry, though out of sadness or gratitude he doesn’t know.

Peter takes Quentin’s face in his hands and guides them back into a bruising kiss. Peter nips at Quentin’s lower lip as he pulls away, finally earning a guttural noise from him in response. Even kissing him is a little like fighting. It’s breathless, urgent, and has Peter feeling rather emotional. 

He feels Quentin’s hands at his collar, searching for a way to get him out of the suit.

“How do I…” he mumbles, staring in confusion at Peter’s suit.

Fixing him with his award-winning bedroom eyes, Peter takes Quentin’s hand in his and presses it to the center of his chest. Slowly, theatrically, the suit melts away in shimmering webs, dematerializing up and into the gold collar clipped around Peter’s neck.

Leaving Peter perched on Quentin’s lap in nothing but his underwear. 

“Holy shit.” Quentin’s eyes are wide. “And here I thought you looked good with the suit _on.”_

Peter’s breath trembles with a laugh that falls out of him like music when Quentin looks up at him, utterly overcome at the sight of Peter practically naked in his lap. Peter buries his face in Quentin’s neck, giggling uncontrollably, and when he can finally look up at him without bursting into another fit of laughter, Quentin is smiling.

“What?” Peter asks, his breath still fluttering in fits and starts.

Quentin chuckles. “That’s the first time I’ve heard you laugh.”

It sinks into Peter like a knife in the heart. The laughter dies in his chest. 

“Oh, wow,” Peter says hollowly.

It’s always _just_ when things start to seem normal that they come crashing down spectacularly around him. Quentin has never heard him laugh? The knife twists, shoves even deeper when Peter has to actively rack his brain for the last time he laughed _at all._ Just another part of himself that the Games have laid waste to. 

Quentin’s Games.

Quentin runs a soothing hand up and down his back and knocks his forehead gently against Peter’s, skimming over his spine in slow, comforting passes. Peter can see every line on Quentin’s face, the deep set of his tired blue eyes, the weary furrow of his brow, the redness flushing his lips. From kissing Peter. 

It’s all he wants in the whole wide world, to believe that this man isn’t the same one who built the cage that almost killed him. The cage that killed MJ. That made Peter kill—

“Didn’t mean to make you sad, sweetheart,” Quentin murmurs, bumping his nose against Peter’s.

Of course, now Peter’s ruined the mood. Straddled across Quentin’s thighs, almost completely naked, a very obvious situation in his underwear that until now he’d been very politely ignoring, and he had to go and make everything all weird and depressing.

“Sorry,” Peter mutters.

“For what?” Quentin frowns. He tenderly brushes a stray curl out of Peter’s eyes. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”

Peter just nods. He feels so impossibly fragile, like he’ll shatter if a breeze passes by him too roughly. So he leans back in and crushes his mouth to Quentin’s, if only to prove to himself that he won’t. Quentin makes a soft sound of surprise as Peter hooks his fingers in Quentin’s shirt collar, unbuttoning it haphazardly. But before he can push it off his shoulders, Quentin reaches up to stop him with a whispered interjection of his name.

Peter pauses, confused. “...you don’t want me to?”

Quentin huffs out a laugh. “I _do_ want you to, but—”

“Then why not?”

Quentin fixes him with a look that Peter’s never seen on him, and it’s so strange that Peter wonders if Quentin has ever made it before. It’s like the muscles of his face are having trouble contorting themselves into an expression other than smirking or brooding.

“I...want to take things slow,” he confesses.

Then Quentin Beck smiles at him sheepishly.

Peter raises his eyebrows. “You just took off all my clothes.”

“I didn’t know it was gonna come off all at once!” Quentin insists, sounding almost embarrassed. “Besides, it’s hard to resist you when you look like this.”

Peter’s heart flutters.

“When I can finally...” Quentin drags a slow finger down his bare chest, “touch you.”

Peter shivers. 

“How I ever kept my hands off you is beyond me,” he mumbles, leaning in and kissing Peter’s jaw. “Walking around my house in your little outfit like that. _Fuck.”_

God, Peter is fully trembling. Quentin’s eyelashes flutter against Peter’s skin and he sighs, tipping his head back.

“You’re not—” he nips at his earlobe and Peter gasps “—very good at taking things slow.”

As if just realizing he’d been diligently sucking a hickey into Peter’s neck, Quentin drops his face into his shoulder, gathering Peter up in his arms and groaning a defeated, “fuck.”

Peter can’t help but laugh just a little.

“I don’t—” Quentin’s muffled voice rumbles against his sternum. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to. I’m not…”

He trails off, but Peter understands what the end of the sentence is supposed to be.

_I’m not like the rest of them._

Peter rests his chin atop Quentin’s head, closing his eyes. “I know.”

They sit there like that for a long time—Peter in Quentin’s lap, wrapped up in his arms, Quentin tucked against his chest—nothing but the sound of their quiet breathing and the slow pulse of their resting hearts.

Quentin isn’t like them. He isn’t like anyone Peter has ever met.

After what feels like hours, Quentin finally whispers, “my legs are falling asleep.”

“Oh, sorry—”

“It’s okay. Lay down, honey,” he murmurs, gentle hands guiding Peter off of him by his hips.

He goes pliantly, curling up atop the covers as he’s washed over with a sudden wave of sleepiness. He can just barely hear the dull hum of the party going on outside, a muffled white-noise lullaby. He’d almost forgotten it was still going on. Sequestered in Quentin’s bedroom, it felt like an entirely different world. One of whispered words and slow kisses and laughter, not illusions and tricks or death and destruction. A world where children aren’t sent to the slaughter for entertainment, to uphold their ancestor’s ancient debt. A world where he and Quentin are the only two people in the world.

Drowsily, he thinks he could get used to that.

The bed shifts as Quentin sidles up behind him. Peter feels fingers at the top of his spine, just barely brushing his skin, and hears a quiet _click_ as Quentin deftly unclips the gold collar from around his neck.

Tired as he is, the metaphor in this moment is not lost on him.

“Thank you,” he mumbles. He thinks he feels a tear slide across the bridge of his nose.

Quentin delicately traces his fingers across the band of red skin where the choker had been, then brushes a careful kiss to Peter’s neck as he scoots in closer, pressing his chest against Peter’s back and draping an arm over his waist.

What is _happening?_

“Just wanted to hold you,” Quentin tells him.

Peter wasn’t aware he had spoken out loud.

When the Games ended and Thanos forced him into selling himself to the Capitol, Peter had resigned himself to the fact that something like this was something he would never have; that someone would never choose to fall asleep holding him if they had the option to fuck him instead. Until Quentin Beck.

Peter isn’t crying, but when he blinks, tears run down his face in sideways rivers. “Is this real?”

That would be Quentin’s cruelest trick yet.

Quentin presses a kiss to the back of his head, whispers into his hair, “it’s real. I promise you. It’s real.”

Peter falls asleep like this, cradled in Quentin’s arms.

_Peter stood in the heart of the arena._

_He was bleeding somewhere but he didn’t know where from. He could only tell because there was blood smeared on his hands—all over him really—and it must be his because MJ—_

_she wasn’t bleeding._

_Her neck_

_her neck was bent at an angle no human bone should bend at._

_Peter had abandoned the mirage of MJ in the darkness, green mist swirling out of the yawning mouth of the cave behind him as he frantically scrambled over rocks and followed the excruciating sound of the real MJ screaming his name. It was coming from the valley. The center of the arena._

_Peter’s mind raced as he did, down the rocky slopes of the valley and through the trees. His lungs burned. How long had he been hallucinating? Flash must have taken her while Peter was asleep. Using her as bait, to lure Peter out of hiding. They had been one step ahead for so long, staying out of the way and letting the tribute pool thin out as much as they could. But why not simply kill them both while they slept? No, that would be too easy. Flash wanted victory hard-won._

_“PETER!”_

_His lungs were on fire. He ran faster._

_When he finally broke through the forest’s edge and into the clearing, it was too late. Peter watched helplessly as Flash cradled MJ’s head in his hands and broke her neck._

_It was a brutal sound. Half of it the snap of her spine, the other half the blood-curdling scream that ripped from her throat as she collapsed, limp, on the ground._

_Peter had never killed anyone, until then. He didn’t even flinch when he rammed his knife as far into Flash’s stomach as he could, over and over and over again_

_oh_

_it was Flash’s blood._

_The cannon sounded just as Peter fell to his knees over MJ’s broken body._

_“I’m so sorry,” he wept. He was too late she was dead (she couldn’t be how could she be dead? but her neck)_

_“Peter,” she croaked._

_She_

_wasn’t dead?_

_“MJ,” Peter gasped, “oh my God.”_

_Flash must not have used enough force to sever her spinal cord. If her muscles had been too tense and he didn’t have the angle just right, he wouldn’t have been able to do more than—_

_“Peter I can’t move.”_

_Paralyze her._

_Trembling, Peter reached for her lifeless hand. “It’s gonna be okay,” he promised her, squeezing it as tight as he could. No response. “I’ll carry you. I’m not leaving here without you.”_

_They had talked about it. Winning together. Convincing the Capitol they were more appealing Victors together than they were on their own. They could still do it, they could still make it out of here_

_“They can fix you,” he insisted, his voice breaking._

_“But they won’t.” Her voice was wrecked, rattling and hoarse. Her vocal cords must have been torn to shreds in the break. “Peter—” MJ tried to shake her head, but all she could do was whimper in pain. “I’m not leaving here.”_

_Peter’s heart stopped. “What...what are you saying?”_

_A tear rolled out of the corner of her eye, and Peter quickly wiped it away with a knuckle covered in blood. It did more harm than good, blood smearing along her pallid skin._

_“You have to kill me.”_

_Stillness._

_No breeze. No whisper of movement in the woods._

_“No,” Peter breathed, “no, MJ, no—”_

_“You have to.” She was crying now, her eyes red. “If you don’t do it, they will.”_

_Peter’s breath hitched, then came faster, and faster, like there was no air in the world and his lungs had shriveled to the size of a hummingbird’s_

_“I can’t,” he choked out, “I don’t want you to go, I can’t do it—”_

_“Please,” MJ begged hoarsely, “look at me, Peter, I’m dead already. Please, I need you to do it. Please.”_

_Her hand twitched imperceptibly towards him._

_“You have to go home. For us.”_

_Peter stood on shaking legs and stumbled to Flash’s body, pulling the blood-slicked knife from his stomach. The world spun around him. He vomited._

_He collapsed beside her, his vision blacking in and out, fits of overbreathing wracking his body as he lined the knife up with the ugly protruding knot of MJ’s broken neck._

_“It’s okay,” she smiled, the corners of her mouth quivering through her tears. “Peter, it’s okay.”_

_“I’m so sorry,” Peter sobbed as he pushed the knife in and severed her spine._

Peter wakes with a heaving gasp, clutching at his chest, hyperventilating through his tears. His bare skin is slick with a sheen of cold sweat. He reaches blindly, instinctively for Quentin but—

Quentin is gone. 

He’s gone. Peter is alone again, the bed beside him empty, the heavy weight of his nightmare pressing down on his chest until he’s suffocating. He chokes on the air he tries to breathe. He’s lightheaded, faint, and he can feel that he’s losing his grip on consciousness fast when his hands start to tingle.

Just then, the bedroom door opens and an unsuspecting Quentin Beck walks in, his eyes blowing wide at the sight of Peter nearly asphyxiating in his own panic. The conscious half of Peter is relieved he’s here, but the half of him still coming down from his vicious nightmare wants him _out_ , doesn’t want Quentin to see him like this now, but he’s rushing to Peter’s side anyway as he gasps hysterically, one hand at his back and the other on his stomach as he tells him, “deep breaths, deep breaths.”

Peter grabs Quentin’s arm but immediately pulls back, afraid he might get blood on Quentin’s shirt sleeve.

“Breath with my voice, okay?” Quentin coaxes. Peter nods vehemently as his body racks with shuddering breaths. “In, out. In, out.”

Peter tries to comply, but his breathing musculature feels like it’s spasming, moving on its own, and Peter sobs as he can’t follow even the simplest instructions.

“Listen to me, Peter, close your eyes. Just listen to my voice and breathe. In. Out.”

He squeezes his eyes shut, letting Quentin guide him through the dark. It’s easier to focus on his gentle voice like this, and after a few torturous minutes of feeling like he might never breathe again, his diaphragm collapses, and he gets in a deep, shuddering breath.

“In, out. That’s it, you’re doing so well, deep breath in. And out.” 

Peter’s breath settles back underneath him, slowly but surely, Quentin’s soothing voice calmly coaching him all the way. How is he so good at this?

“I’m okay,” Peter finally pants, and Quentin huffs in his ear.

“Keep breathing. I’m not taking any chances.”

Peter obeys, leaning into Quentin’s side and breathing in the calming scent of his cologne. He wraps his arm around Peter’s shoulder, drawing him in. Warm. Comforting.

After several breaths pass, Peter sighs, “so much for sleeping better in your bed.”

“Are you alright?” Quentin asks.

How is he supposed to answer that? No, he’s not.

“It was about her,” Peter says suddenly, surprising himself. He doesn’t need to clarify, but he breathes her name, just to hear it. To bring her to life as much as he can. “MJ.”

It feels rusty in his mouth. He can almost taste how long it’s been since he’s said it. _MJ._ Sadness wells up in his throat. Maybe he imagines it, but Quentin squeezes him a little tighter.

“I think she would hate me for this,” he confesses quietly. 

Quentin shrugs. “I wouldn’t blame her.”

Peter’s heart aches. _Change the subject, change the subject._

He looks up at Quentin. “Where did you go?”

“I had to go make a toast before I very ungraciously kicked everyone out of my house,” he tells him. “Your friend Tony was not pleased when I told him you were asleep upstairs.”

 _Tony._ Fuck. Peter had forgotten about him. How much of the night had he spent worrying himself sick over where Peter was? He would have blamed himself if anything had happened to him—not that anything did—but if it had, he would never forgive himself.

More importantly, Tony’s going to be _pissed_ at Peter for being this stupid.

“Shit,” Peter sighs, rubbing his eyes til he sees stars.

“I don’t think he likes me very much,” Quentin adds.

“He doesn’t.”

“Again, I don’t blame him.”

Peter is still tucked against Quentin’s side, now very much caught in his embrace. It’s awfully quiet without the sounds of the party softly underscoring the lulls in their conversation, and with everyone gone, it’s only a matter of time before Quentin escorts him out, too. He doesn’t want to leave.

“If everyone’s gone,” he ventures, hoping to God he’s being subtle, “how am I supposed to get home?”

Quentin reaches for his hand, lazily intertwining their fingers. “I was hoping you might spend the night,” he says, his voice low.

Peter’s stomach drops, does a backflip, then several cartwheels. He surges up, grabbing at Quentin’s re-buttoned shirt for purchase, and kisses him.

“I would really like that,” Peter admits breathlessly, lips still brushing Quentin’s as he speaks.

“Good,” Quentin replies, kissing Peter’s smiling mouth and telling him, “Jesus, you must be freezing, get under the covers.”

Settling into bed takes longer than expected, as Peter insists on getting even by stripping Quentin to his underwear as well (and he has to make a concerted effort not to drool when he finally does). When they finally turn off the lights and tuck themselves under the plush blankets, Peter’s curled up against Quentin’s side, his head resting over his heart.

The steady rise and fall of his chest makes Peter wonder something.

“How did you know how to do that?” Peter asks, his voice bleeding into the quiet darkness. “The breathing thing.”

Quentin pauses. “It’s a long story.”

“I have all night, don’t I?” Peter asks playfully, but he can feel something has shifted between them. Quentin is tense, his heartbeat stuttering unevenly in Peter’s ear. It’s making him nervous.

“I was...married. Before all of this,” Quentin says softly. “When I was still an apprentice.”

_Married?_

Had Peter heard him right?

“I’d been an apprentice for almost two years when Thanos told me I was next in line for Head Gamemaker. And I politely declined.”

Peter didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this. He feels like he shouldn’t be looking at Quentin. He’s staring up at the ceiling with a sad smile on his face, and Peter has to look away when his heart twinges painfully. Peter knows where this is going, knows firsthand what happens when you say no to the President; he’d been threatened the same way.

Say no, and everyone you love dies.

“I thought it was an empty threat. He killed her. And I got promoted.”

Peter feels a shameful swell of selfishness rise up in him, like bile in his throat. How is Peter supposed to compete with his dead wife? He wants to slap himself for even thinking it.

“I’m so sorry,” is all Peter says. He hedges a cursory glance at Quentin’s left hand. “I had no idea.”

“I’m not supposed to talk about it,” Quentin replies. “Capitol treason.”

He reaches out his hand—his left hand—and takes Peter’s hand in his.

“All that to say, I understand.” His thumb runs over Peter’s knuckles. “I’ll always blame myself for what happened to her.”

Peter had no idea they were so similar.

“I feel like I failed her,” Peter whispers.

“You were set up to fail,” he says, squeezing his hand, “and you’ll always fail if the game you’re playing is rigged against you.”

It’s the first time Peter’s ever heard him say a word against the Games. 

He thinks he hears Quentin’s voice break when he tells him, “you did what you had to do. It’s not your fault.”

Their hands fit together so well.

They grieve together, limbs tangled and hands held and bodies pressed close under the covers.

* * *

It’s morning.

The sun filters in beautifully through the gorgeous windows in Quentin’s bedroom. The room is washed in a soft glow of morning light, dust motes swirling idly in the pools of sun streaming in through the windows.

Peter blinks sleepily, the sun bright in his tired eyes as he wakes. No nightmares. He slept _so_ well last night, and his heart skips when he remembers why.

Quentin’s arms wrapped around him, Peter tucked neatly against his broad chest.

Peter rolls over, looking for Quentin to hold him again, but he finds the bed empty. Cold. The covers are pulled up over Quentin’s side, crisply made in his absence.

Peter sits up.

On Quentin’s pillow, there’s a piece of paper, neatly folded into a square.

_Peter_

He picks it up and gingerly unfolds it. On the inside is a note that simply reads:

_Good morning, sweetheart. I’ll see you next week._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did i write the words "even drunker" in this chapter? absolutely. am i aware it's grammatically incorrect? for sure. am i gonna change it? nope
> 
> thank you for reading. i love u all. stay home, wash ur hands, wear a mask, etc. can't believe i'm writing that in the notes of a fanfic but weird times we're livin in

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading! comments are better than breathing oxygen 💖💖💖


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